


Under Solomon's Shadow

by The_Exile



Category: Zwei (Video Games), イース | Ys
Genre: Demons, Foreshadowing, Gen, Implied Relationships, Post-Game(s), Prophecy, Roos, Spoilers, Transformation, typewriters, typing of Ys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 08:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16364615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Exile/pseuds/The_Exile
Summary: Adol is on a new adventure in Celceta but Feena and Reah's duties to watch over Esteria have not finished. They know that magic is not yet gone from the world - Adol is discovering both monsters and magic in other continents! Meanwhile, the citizens of Ys are attempting to communicate with Roos in the hope of establishing the true nature of the monsters and maybe bringing in an era of peace. The Goddesses aid them by lending them a mystic typewriter. Everything is going to plan, except that nobody has noticed Keith acting strangely, reverting back to monstrous behaviour, listening to dark whispering in his heart from a fallen priest who is not gone, his soul is only resting in his family's statue.artwork by Lyrikin - http : // lyrikin . tumblr . com / post / 179279474203 / heres-my-art-for-the-fantasy-big-bang-the-event





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> love letter to Typing of Ys

Two Goddesses watched in pleasant amusement as the arrival of a small golden-furred creature broke the monotony of their eternal vigil over the source of all forbidden magic. Even as Feena poured another cup of tea for her sister and placed a plate of fresh fruit on a fine china dish on the floor near their garden table, spiritual energy poured from her. Wards both elaborate and strong created watertight divine shields around the sphere that hung in the air, dull and dormant in appearance but still near-invisibly pulsing, resting and waiting, even now probably sending out the faintest tendrils to test the limits of their jailers' power. Exhaustion did not show upon the porcelain beauty of their faces but their not inconsiderable power was nearly all taken up by guarding the Black Pearl, both by the magical energy required to counteract such a primal, raging force and the concentration that it took to thwart its constant attempts to escape, the discipline needed to turn aside its enticing song. Had they not been Goddesses, such a thing would be impossible. The tea breaks were necessary focuses of will to keep their minds calm and their nerves steady, even if they couldn't put all their attention into the task. Their duty required unison between their minds, so performing such tasks for each other whenever they sensed one or the other was flagging was a good test of their synchronised thought patterns. The strong rejuvenating herbs they put into the tea itself helped a lot, admittedly.

They couldn't go on forever. They admitted this to themselves. They hoped that the time wouldn't be long until they no longer needed to perform this duty. Not on their own, at least. The signs were finally developing that there might be a hope that their children would grow up to be like them, no, even greater in nature. Maybe they would even fail to learn the bad habits of their mentors and mother figures, avoid making the mistakes of the past. 

One could always pray.

Smelling the food and immediately locating it, the little rodent's long kangaroo-like ears pricked up, whiskers and nose twitching, then he bounded up the final few steps towards the plate. The broad marble steps of the temple, arranged in a circle around the column with the Black Pearl atop it, the Goddess' table to one side and a pile of their favourite books arranged next to large cushions on the other, were rather tall for a Roo to navigate, but fortunately their feet were designed for jumping. They resembled fairly large, intelligent jerboa with endearing, almost feline faces and an almost humanoid range of expressions. They were also a lot more magically capable than they let on. The two Goddesses kept their secret, though, understanding that it had kept them safe when they lived symbiotically with several rather nasty creatures over the millennia. 

Giving the food a final suspicious sniff, the Roo chirped happily, picked up a chunk of the Roda Fruit in his proportionally small forepaws and nibbled it a little. After a couple of bites, he shrugged and tried to stuff the whole thing into his cheeks. 

"You're not a hamster, you know," Reah chided, "Show a little respect around the Twin Goddesses of Ys!"

Still with his mouth full, the Roo let out a trill that could have been interpreted as an apology if you were being generous.

"We don't eat for free either. Tell me where he is and what he's discovered! You did do as we promised, right, Roosevelt?"

Dismissing them with a tail flick and flattened ears that they knew meant 'can't talk, mouth full', the Roo stuffed the rest of the food in his face, then burped and curled up next to the plate. Feena glared at him again until he began a chirping, excitable monologue. The language was not any recognised by a human. The Goddesses understood their language, however, especially when it was embellished with so many theatrical gestures and melodramatic expressions, requiring a lot more jumping up and down than Reah was convinced was necessary.

"So he went to Felghana," Feena mused, frowning, "Then stopped in Esteria briefly before heading to Celceta. And you saw him in Roo form again?" the creature chirruped his affirmation, "You saw him use another form of magic... two forms of magic? One of them looked like the priests' staves but weren't quite the same and one of them... used Cleria? No, another sacred rock like Cleria but different?" 

"That could be any number of things," Reah sighed, "Raval, Emelas... Eldeen Above, it could even be El Doran if he's gotten to Celceta! He wanders so far and wide and there's nothing we can do to affect him, even to keep him safe... not that I think he'd want us to, not when we lie to him. No doubt he's already made the connection between our last words to him and the weird things he's seen in other places..."

"To be fair on me, I mostly just translated the Books of Ys when asked, I never affirmed or denied their contents," said Feena, "And I only ever spoke about what had happened in Esteria. None of that was a lie. Esteria no longer contains magic. Or Monsters."

The Roo's chirps became loudly exclaimed protestations. He kicked the tray.

"Apart from the mundane, human type," addended Feena, "And whatever new hell they've brought with them, or possibly even created anew."

Roosevelt the Roo shook his head furiously and sneezed.

"You detected genuine evil magic on the continent already?" Feena frowned, "We have less time than we thought. How's that other project coming along?"

This topic of conversation apparently cheered Roosevelt up. He babbled for ten minutes solid, squeaked and did a backflip.

"Two whole Roda fruits, huh? We'll have to step up our own game, I suppose," she smiled, "But it's very good that you co-operated, Roosevelt. I swear to you that it'll work out this time, that it'll make a genuine difference and you'll be a lot safer and have a better quality of life as a result."

"My sister means that it'll be different this time because we're going to try our best to intervene as much as possible even though the mess isn't anywhere near properly fixed," said Reah, "That's why I'm speaking with you guys a lot more now, why I'm still keeping track of him, why I'm working on a way to help Keith. I'll give you another device to take to the humans. Another little piece of magitech. Back in the days when Ys was great, it wouldn't be any more wondrous than a scribe's ledger."

"I'll fetch it. I need a break anyway," said Reah, teleporting away before her sister could argue. Feena sighed and took the proverbial reins. She looked up at the Black Pearl, still weakly protesting its capture.

"You know, I can kind of see where you're coming from," she told the sphere, "This is crude. And ignorant. And inefficient. And we've let you down. I promise you it won't be forever. It probably won't even be that long."

There was no answer. Feena didn't doubt that the alien, half-mechanical sentience she had helped her sister to create in the first place could hear her. It didn't really have a proper way of answering, though, not that it was in a good enough mood to talk.

"If that hothead manages to find the Masks," she added, "We'll have to move our schedule forward even further. If we don't take matters into our own hands, either he'll start something off or he'll allow the enemy to do so again. I... what on Earth, Reah?"

She gaped at the contraption balanced in her sister's arms, steadied using the white silk cloth of her long, flowing dress. They looked so pale and delicate but then her sister went and carried something that big and bulky, expecting some poor Roo to also be able to carry it. 

"Don't worry, it has wheels."

"And he'll, what, skate to Ramia Village on the back of it? I thought you meant one of the communication shells or something."

"It has a handle, Feena. I was thinking, text is easier to learn than speech, it's slower."

“I…” the Goddess of Ys sighed, “Look, Roosevelt, if you want to take that thing back out of the Shrine with you, feel free, but also feel free to tell my sister...”

The Roo jumped up, let out a determined chirrup and kicked the device down the stairs with one boot of his surprisingly powerful hind paws. Then he scampered along after it, chittering.

“Careful with that, it has delicate parts! Don’t scratch the cleria plating! NOT THAT WAY, THAT’S THE EXPERIMENTAL CHAMBER!” Reah screamed and flew – literally – down the stairs after the Roo. 

Feena sighed. She supposed she would have to bear the weight alone a little longer. 

“Not for much longer,” she told the still silent globe, “This whole thing will not last much longer at all.”

"So, explain to me again how this thing works."

The amused, hirsute Ramian scholar stepped out of the way just in time as the Roo jumped back to his feet, shook his ears back into some semblance of order then smoothed down his disheveled fur. Flattening his ears in determination again, he jumped at the device and attacked it with sweeping flails of his paws. 

With a series of loud clacks, whirring cogs, crackles of magic and fast-moving parts that almost smacked the Roo across the hallway, the vaguely cash register-like keys on the front moved up and down, producing a piece of paper upon which was written:

' R O O F R U I T.'

"I see you've already learned the important words," he chuckled, reaching into his fur-lined coat for a piece of fruit. Since his appointment as official interpreter to the quickly expanding Roo colony (their first actions since losing their main source of predators and gaining free range of the place was to breed like rabbits, transferring them from the endangered watchlist to the possible ecosystem imbalance watchlist within a week) he had taken to carrying Roo food with him everywhere. 

Regg retrieved the sheet of paper from the contraption and sniffed it, tested the air with a wet finger, then performed a simple magical scan. He wasn't sure how the scanner itself still worked, never mind how he still found readings on the device. Wasn't magic supposed to be gone from Ys? He had always believed his own talents in his specialist field were nothing more than an innate gift and decades of hard work and enthusiasm, not to discount of course his many willing fluffy test subjects. He had always been able to communicate with Roo because their languages, both spoken and written, weren't really that complicated. Once you got past their animalistic appearance, unnervingly pure magical signature despite registering as demons and entirely different values in life to humans, they were entirely intelligent enough to be classified as equals. The thought that his ability might be a minor magical gift, possibly due to some Gemma blood in his ancestry, had occurred to him but he had dismissed it after not much thought. His methodical procedures could work without magic. That was why they worked once magic had left the continent again.

Of course, he had heard the rumours that magic was returning, and not necessarily the benevolent type, brought back possibly by those suspiciously heavily armed Romuns. Adol's letters had included reports of miraculous occurrences, phenomena that couldn't just be put down to exotic new corners of the world. 

Talking of the soldiers, he had warned the Roos time and time again to keep away from the Romuns and never to play pranks on them or steal their food. After weeks of them completely ignoring his advice, he began to realise that he was trying to tell his granny not to suck eggs, as it were. The Roo were used to surviving on the periphery of a society literally made up of monsters. They could deal with a few self-important humans who mostly hadn't even cottoned on that they might be edible yet. 

Shaking his head of such worrying thoughts, the scholar walked up to the machine and took out his spyglass to examine it further. If it was anything like a normal cash register, it was likely to have his hand off if he approached it too quickly. He took his cane and poked at the letters. 

Regg, he wrote.

The Roo scratched the fur behind his ears, then wrote:

R O O S E V E L T

then as an afterthought,

F R U I T.

"Only if you go and gather the others for me," replied the scholar, patting his pockets, "See if you can't wake up Keith, too!"

Roosevelt bounded off, chittering, leaving the device with Regg. He went back to inspecting it but not before peering out of his door, at first to make sure the Roo was actually going where he had been asked and not shaking random trees for food again, then to walk up the steps of his back garden, to stare thoughtfully up at the Temple of Solomon. The restoration of the Goddess Statues around the spire, removed as part of the hideous rituals in the bell tower when the sanctuary was occupied by demonic forces, was complete. Whenever he had his suspicions about the rate that things were moving these days, he stared up at two beautiful winged ladies who invariably smiled enigmatically but benevolently back down at him.

He said a quick prayer before he went back inside and resumed tinkering with the machine.  
Seven souls looked upon the land of Esteria from the place private to them, somewhere in the heart of Ys, deeply connected to its own spirit, but at the same time no longer in the same physical space that the land inhabited, a state of existence closer to the old world than the new.

* * *

"Intruders advance upon our land," noted one of the souls, "Maybe invaders."

The others turned to him, unused to hearing him speak. It was still difficult to get used to his return, to trust him again, even though it was such a good thing to have all seven of them together again, the true spirit of Ys united in purpose. He was still different. On the verge of return somehow, still connected to the present, even though he had a suitable descendant. They were all suspicious of this: had there been more forbidden magic, experiments on the very soul? Such a thing should be unthinkable... he would not admit to such sins though. 

"There is no war in their hearts," commented Tovah in response to Fact's complaint, "Not right here and now, anyway."

"They seek something of ours," said Gemma, "Something of the Goddess', I think."

"If they are after our books, we are all in great danger," noted Fact.

"Yes, it WOULD be a threat to the entire world if those books got into THE WRONG HANDS again," Tovah could not glare pointedly at Fact, being a disembodied spirit who existed only as soul-memories stored on paper through a careful mix of various disciplines of magic and thorough record-keeping.

"I meant," Fact's tone was a humourless drawl, "That there is a danger that the invaders FROM OUTSIDE ESTERIA might take the books OUTSIDE ESTERIA where the magic anchoring our souls to this world might not work so far from their hub."

"You have to see why we don't quite trust you with their protection, though?"

"Why? Because I recovered them when they were lost in the first place?"

"You dug up perfectly good shrines in Esteria."

"Where they were doing... what? Being accidentally uncovered by mining operations which you knew perfectly well the Esterians did a lot of before you built underground shrines? By the way, I still don't see how sealing the books in shrines was a benevolent thing to do in the first place. Do you not trust the Esterians with any knowledge that they could use to defend themselves? Any clue that there was a threat at all?"

"Don't talk like the threat wasn't you. You summoned an army of monsters. We were hiding the books from said monsters."

"That was Darm! I just used the monsters for my own purposes! Which, by the way, would have worked just fine as a system of government for Esteria, much better than the - what? - three abandoned mining communities already there. I could have gotten the Storm Wall down, set up some trade routes with the other monster-positive communities..."

"Sieg Fact, you do talk some bullshit sometimes," remarked Gemma in a tone full of pious wisdom and serenity.

"Our day is coming," promised Fact, "We won't be singing the Lacrimosa any time soon. Not with my disciple..."

"Keith doesn't follow you as a disciple, and any part of this ill advised attempts at negotiating with pure evil incarnate will be on the humans' terms and maybe, if they behave themselves, the Roos'," Tovah said sternly.

"Ah, yes, because monsters are perfectly fine as long as they are cute and fluffy..."

"And don't eat people. You missed the important part."

"And yet humans may eat Pikkards. Tell me, Gemma, I believe biology is one of your many fields of expertise: what is the genetic difference between a human and a Pikkard?"

"While we argue, Romun becomes the new leaders of human civilisation, homogenising or destroying all in their path," stated Mesa, the first time the historian had spoken in a long while. Hadal, the geomancer and travel mage, murmured his agreement.

"Oh, don't worry, this is not an argument, I am merely laying some ground rules, now that we are together again. I will be respected as a valid member of this little community and my agenda will be taken into account."

“Someone’s burying deep,” muttered Hadal suddenly, “Deeper than normal. Too close to… Fact! A shield! Now, on the masks...”

“Oh, the masks are still here? Now THAT is something you should have told me earlier.”


	2. Chapter 2

Every night Keith was awoken abruptly from his slumber by the same dream. He had been first awoken by strange sounds, seductive whispering, sibilant hissing voices, the pulsing hum of an energy he could feel the heat of on his skin, taste its ozone smell. The clacking of large pincers, the scraping of sharp claws... He tried to grab his spear, the one he slept next to these days despite the relative peace. He failed to grasp the haft, caused the whole thing to roll away with a clatter. A bestial growl of frustration escaped his mouth. He felt his own fangs cut painfully against his lips. He snarled and clenched his scaly green fist, bared long sickle-like claws... his true self had been asleep for so long, his body become weak and his mind soft, he craved release, the warmth of blood gushing straight from the arteries, the satisfaction of still quivering raw meat... to follow the pulse of the black pearl and all the satisfaction of his endless hunger it offered... but first he would need to consume enough of the life signals he could feel all around him so he could make the journey back to the core of Solomon Shrine...

He woke up for real then, sweating and yelling. The residue of the dream still remained, in the form of a horrible taste in his mouth, an itching in his skin that wouldn't go away, phantom sensation in a tail that hadn't existed for... how long now? He shook his head. Counting it just stressed him out, distracted him from his everyday life. 

Except his old job was a little pointless now - there was nothing to guard the ruins from except the odd relic thief who tended to get killed by the traps anyway - and anyway the scholars wouldn't let him forget what had happened... no, he shook his head. He wouldn't blame others any more, play the helpless victim. He had volunteered for this because it was important, because people needed to know. Because there was a chance one of the schemes of theirs would actually work, and if not, it would at least help them to learn more about the enemy.

It was more use than sitting around sulking, or slowly giving in to the pressure to do something unspeakable again. Why did such a 'pressure' even exist anyway? Hadn't all that gone away? The black pearl, the magic, the monsters... He could believe it was only his own guilt and memories, that his imagination was powerful enough to make it seem real, but something in him told him that he shouldn't just assume things like that.

Especially as he should have no idea who 'Siegue Fact' was but the name wouldn't get out of his head…

He opened his door for some fresh air, maybe a wander around the neighbourhood, look out for trouble at the same time. The healers had warned him that he probably wouldn't go back to a normal sleep pattern for a while - they had even predicted the flashbacks and phantom sensations - and encouraged him to try and have as normal and relaxed a time as he could despite this. The village itself still wasn't back to normal - the Romun bastards being sighted in Esteria Proper hadn't helped matters - but it was a lot better than it had been. He could wander over to Solomon Shrine any time he wanted to and not be assaulted by monsters, although his brain still screamed at him that it wasn't a good idea.

He almost tripped over the wildly chittering Roo. The comical outrage on the fuzzy face immediately improved his mood. He smiled, trying to hide his amusement, and bent down to greet the creature. The Roo hadn't cleared off when nearly trod on, and by his gestures and the tugging on Keith's trouser leg, he clearly wanted something from the guard in person.

"What the hell's that?" he demanded when offered a crumpled, Roda Fruit-stained note. The writing on it was oddly neat and symmetrical. He knew that Romun had produced a few devices that printed writing like this, with the intention of one day mass producing it, but they sure as hell couldn't write in Roonic. 

Mixed in with the long streams of Roo language were awkwardly spaced lines of dialogue in Esterian: 

G O R T MEETMEN O L T I A night

"I take it Regg's got one of his experiments he needs my help with," he sighed, looking down at the Roo who was now gazing up at him with wide, moist black eyes, making infantile chirruping noises and brushing his paws against the sides of his face in a way he damn well knew that humans found endearing.

"Yes, yes, I've got fruit," he rummaged around in his pockets, "Now, I don't suppose you'd mind leading me to our meeting place?" 

He soon arrived at the usual clearing in the middle of Noltia Ice Ridge, a good position for someone to travel from Ramia through Burnblessed and just travel straight down now that a proper path had been carved through what no longer needed to be a forbidding ring of protective icy mountains, keeping the monsters at bay. The Roos, of course, had just slid straight down the mountain slopes, and were now arranged in random heaps, often curled up with their ears flopping in the snow. The main focus of their attention, apart from the strange new device, was a basket of Roda Fruit.

In order to get their attention, Regg had typed, in Roonic first and then Esterian underneath it, then nailed to a tree, ‘Adol Kristin has found another Great Roda Tree in Celceta’.

"They say, 'of course you're finding some outside the Stormwall, they're bloody plants'," Keith translated as he sat down on a tree stump beside a pair of Roos, one of whom immediately sniffed his pockets.

"Well, if you're in the mood for back-talking your teacher, you must be returning to your usual self," Regg returned a wry grin, "Welcome to the class, Regg. No, neither Roos nor small boys are allowed coffee."

Keith looked down inside a particular squabbling pile of Roos to find, to his amusement, Tarf, one of the Lava Sanctuary's young children, playing with the creatures. He was giggling wildly and definitely did not seem to require coffee. Or be afraid of the creatures who were technically, biologically and spiritually speaking, classified as monsters. Most living creatures would still instinctively avoid Roos and some humans, mostly the older adults, required extra effort to approach them. Later generations and for some reason cats had no such problems. It was the basis of another of Regg's harebrained theories, that all humans naturally had a little of the Black Pearl's energies inside them, usually only a tiny amount in the older generations unless they were from one of the genetic lines that had magic at some point, or had been exposed to the Pearl's energies during its sealing. The later generations had been young and malleable when the Pearl was active again and had begun to absorb some of the device's background radiation. While this made them vulnerable to spiritual corruption, or in extreme cases (probably related to the unusual amount of exposure of the Fact lineage), an experience such as Keith's transformation, it also made them more accepting of the presence of Roos and therefore more suitable for Regg's 'social experiment'.

The theory was unpopular, implying as it did that humans were just as much monsters as Roos, also the visiting scholar Luta Gemma had also picked it up. 

"If a human can be capable of some of the worst evils and still not be a 'monster', while a Roo doesn't have an evil thought in its little head apart from maybe stealing fruit, but they're always 'monsters' on some sort of genetic technicality, does the word even mean what it used to? Maybe we're admitting that what we call a 'monster' is just another kind of animal, maybe from a world incompatible with ours," the Gemma descendant had mused over a cup of strong black coffee, "I'm not saying that we should let our guard down around a species that does, unarguably, consider humans to be prey, but... Adol still hasn't debunked the rumour that there are humans in Afroca that eat other humans. What I'm saying is, you might be on to something about there being some kind of middle ground between humans and true monsters, or at least a basis upon which we can understand each other."

"One thing is for certain in all of this, you know," Regg told him, staring pointedly at Tarf, "Young boys developing the instinct to unquestioningly follow Roos around wherever they go is a rather worrying evolutionary divergence. You do remember that your Roo friends casually jumped down a cliff to get here, yes?"

"It's okay, Mr Regg, Roofus has promised me he'll show me how to do it safely!"

"Roofus has told you his name, has he? You're not just naming them yourself again?" he smiled at the enthusiastically nodding boy, "Roofus, would you care to come up to the front of the class and type your name on this device?"

"I wanna play with it! I can write my name!" said Tarf, "I'm learning to write my name in Roonic, too! I can already say it in Roonic!"

Regg smiled in delight as the boy lapsed into a series of chirps and trills. Roofus, meanwhile, had bounded across the clearing and was now doing his best to get the hang of the keys on the device. 

"I didn't know you were an engineer among your, what, seven other fields of expertise," noted Keith.

"Oh, I didn't build this. Truth be told, Roosevelt suddenly appeared with it, after being gone for a long time. He refuses to tell me where he got it from, says it's an important secret, but I'm skeptical that the current Roo level of socioeconomic development could produce machinery like this," he said, "Also, it's magitechnological. Around half genuine technology, half magic. There's Gemma magic, of course, and a surprising amount of Tovah magic."

"So it's true that other sources of magic are being found," Keith frowned.

"We don't know that they have anything to do with the Black Pearl, Keith. Luta Gemma's current theory, backed up by Adol's findings so far, is that the ancient civilisations were a lot more numerous and expansive than just the Kingdom of Ys. For all we know, Ys could have been considered backwater, the Black Pearl ridiculously inefficient and wasteful."

"That's... reassuring?" Keith scratched his head, "And this particular device...?"

"You tell me, Keith, you're more sensitive to the Pearl by far than any of us."

"And you think it's a good idea for me to be just testing it like a scientific curiosity, with my track record?"

“Sada and Gorto say they’ll take you down if you turn again,” Regg reassured him, “Although it would be scientifically interesting to witness the process...”

“NO! Absolutely no turning me into a monster on purpose!” he snapped, causing the Roo couple to freeze, their huge ears pricking up, then darting away to hide behind Tarf, “That’s the one condition of my assistance in this social experiment...”

“Relax, Keith, if I had the sort of equipment it would require to re-monstrate you, I would be making a lot more progress...”

“Is that a word?” asked Tarf.

Keith shook his head, “You know, you shouldn’t get drawn into everything this old coot says and does.”

“It’s okay, my dad’s training me to be a carpenter. It’s boring, though, so I use this as an excuse to skip out on it.” 

“There’ll be bustling trade again soon, you know, you might make some good money if you learned how to build ships.”

Several of the Roos' ears pricked up when they heard the words 'ship' and 'trade'. They were learning a lot more than Regg had realised. It was hard to tell from their sleepy, indifferent faces how much they actually took in during lessons until they suddenly started fixating on a concept.

"Fish!" exclaimed Roofus.

"Ships don't just have fish on them, Roofus, they come from all over the world and buy and sell anything you could dream of," explained Tarf.

"Buy fruit?" 

"In exchange for what?" Keith asked suspiciously. A thoughtful look crossed the Roo's face. His nose twitched and he scratched behind one of his ears. Then his ears pricked up with some revelation and he jumped up and down, resting his chin on his hands and opening his eyes wide as possible, his ears drooping, his face an approximation of a smile despite Roos actually mostly slow-blinking or making soft crooning noises to indicate they were happy. Regg gave him a sceptical look.

"No, Roofus, you cannot trade for food entirely by looking cute at people until they give you things."

"To be fair on him..." began Tarf.

"Yes, I know it would work perfectly well. I just... it's not the point of the exercise! A dog or cat can do that, we want to prove that the Roo are as intelligent and civilised as humans!"

"Regg, what exactly would they trade? They don't produce anything beyond what they need to survive, and when they do have a bit left over, it's mostly fruit, which is what they want to buy," pointed out Keith.

"Hm... you have a valid point, I suppose..." Regg scratched his shaggy head, "Although I was hoping for an information exchange... I'm well aware that the Roos are much closer to both the Goddesses and the monsters than we will ever be, no matter how much you try to pretend you know nothing..." he shook his head, peering at Roofus, who still stood there, doing his best wide-eyed innocent impression, "Anyway, even if you were going to provide a paid service of looking cute, say as a therapy or an escort service, you would still have to draw up a contract," he pointed to the device, "We can start off with a basic receipt. Keith, would you like to demonstrate how to type up a receipt on the typewriter?"

"You've decided what to name it already? Well, at least it's a good practical name," Keith shrugged, "How in the Goddess' name does this thing work?"

"It's very simple, just press the key that corresponds to the character you need... that key there is a space... that key changes to the next line... press that if you want to cross out a letter, although please think about what you want to type beforehand rather than using up all our valuable ink, I'm not exactly sure how you even change the ink, although I really will need to open this thing up at some point and take it apart..."

"I see, well, I hope you can put it back together, we don't want to offend whoever it is that gave us the thing..." Keith was followed by a small retinue of curious Roos, two of whom had to be gently shoved out of the way to stop them trying to 'help' him with his typing. He sat down on the tree stump next to the machine and placed his hand on a key. Despite Regg's boasts that they were basically human, Keith was fairly sure he would have to simplify what he was writing for the Roos. Besides, the simpler a document was, the better, as long as it wasn't vague enough to leave loopholes everywhere... making it too complicated only meant you ended up with more rope to hang yourself with anyway...

He swore as he quickly recoiled from the device, snatching his hand back from the source of sudden, intense, crushing pain. At least, he thought he had sworn, but as everyone in the clearing looked at him in horror, the Roos freezing in place, hiding behind the nearest object or person, occasionally playing dead, he realised he had lapsed into monstrous roaring. Looking down at his arms, he was relieved to find that he was still in human flesh. Only his mind had attempted to revert to its demonic transformation, his one instinct for a moment being to kill and devour the hated source of pain. 

The hand that had reached for the typewriter was now marked with several painful burns, skin red and raw or even blackened and shriveled in spots. 

"A fireball came out!" yelled Tarf, glaring at Regg, "You said it was harmless!"

"It was, until Keith touched it!" he snapped, looking more terrified than truly angry, "What have you done to it?"

A quick inspection, this time using the scholar's walking stick to poke at the machine's insides, revealed no malfunctions - nothing smoking or lighting up red, no jammed outlets or sharp broken parts. The only thing Regg reported back was a magical reaction.

"Oh, the thing's cursed and in the middle of our village? Great!" Keith snarled.

Regg shook his head, "No, not cursed. That was distinctly divine magic. Offensive divine magic, but... Keith, I believe this was a security measure, and it reacted specifically to you, because, you know..."

"As if suddenly attacking me is LESS likely to make me turn hostile again!" Regg snarled.

"It does seem rather an odd reaction, come to think of it. You'd think it would also object to the presence of the Roos..."

"Forget it, I'm leaving."

"You are a vital part of this social experiment, and I'd ask you not to be so childish around matters that might endanger the whole village..."

"Don't you get it? I'm the threat here! That thing reacted to me because I'm still not fully in control of this. I'm still likely to be a threat to it. That's why it attacked me but not the Roos. Not because it thought I was a monster. I've already told you I still get the dreams but nobody thinks to try and deal with the problem, no, it's all about teaching Roos to swindle people and treating people like lab animals!" 

"Keith, we literally have no idea why you're still experiencing this, the Black Pearl is well and truly sealed..."

"Then if you're so sure of that, I'll go and check myself. I'll found out what's wrong!"

"Be careful, you're no Adol Kristin!" warned Regg, but the man had already gone home to fetch his spear.


	3. Chapter 3

As he removed the weapon from its stand in one corner of the room, he felt his hand itch, his skin crawl as though his flesh was already transforming into green, scaly hide. The pressure in his head, a roaring maelstrom of white like the tides around the stormwall, drove him to snarl, urged him to destroy something, anything, just to make the horrible tension go away. 

This is just stress mixed with flashbacks, he told himself, anyone would experience such things after trauma, and he had been nervous, suspicious around the device. Maybe the stupid thing did malfunction momentarily and hurt him, then the combination of things put him in a mood where he wanted to smash the device, and that was what set off the security reaction. It could have happened to anyone… 

He shook his head. There could be no excuses, not when there was any chance remaining that he could be a threat to someone in the village. That shouldn’t happen – it shouldn’t even be a possibility if the Goddesses had told the truth – but he no longer felt absolutely sure. Besides, even if he found no answers to the questions about his own nature, he needed to make sure nothing in there was changing again, or any of the evil at its core reawakened.

The two guards were at the gate of Solomon Shrine as usual. They normally looked bored these days, leaving frequently to go and address more immediate and real problems. Right now they were alert, their weapons out. Regg must have warned them about Keith’s outburst, guessed where he was about to head. Idiots, he snarled, keeping out the person who was about to go and check everything was okay, on the instructions of someone who they had forgotten wasn’t even the mayor…

He drew his spear, vowing to go and teach them some common sense even if he had to beat it into them, when he was interrupted by a certain familiar high-pitched cry.

“What’s wrong, Tarf?” he sighed. Please don’t let Regg have talked the boy into becoming his secret weapon to persuade Keith to do pretty much anything…

“Adol’s come home! And Dogi!” he yelled, “He’s going to see Lilia! We need to go and see him before he leaves again!”

“Adol hasn’t come ‘home’, Tarf, he doesn’t live here, we have no idea where the boy’s from,” Keith corrected him.

“I’m not allowed that far away on my own. You’ve got to come with me! We’ll both miss our chance!”

“What would I want to see Adol for?”

“Um… because he can help you with your problems! That’s what he does! If he was there to keep us safe, I’m sure we’d be allowed to go into the Solomon Shrine and visit the Goddesses!”

“What makes you think I’d take you that dangerous?”

“It’s not dangerous any more, there’s no more monsters. The guards are just being extra careful.”

“I’m not sure I believe it’s all over...”

“Then that’s a good reason you have to go and tell Adol!”

Keith sighed. It did make a certain amount of sense. A man like Adol would be of great help if he did find himself getting into trouble. He was only mortal, the forces he might face were not and he was unconvinced Adol was just a human either. Even if he was a mortal, he had so much help from higher forces that he might as well be an angel. If anyone could truly remove the darkness from this world – or at least from Keith’s soul, even if it meant his own end – it would be that strange red-haired wanderer.

Without knowing it, Keith had already led Tarf through the gates of Burnblessed and down towards the Lava Colony. The boy waved to his father, who smiled and waved back once they recognised Keith. Because of course their son was safe with the person who they had seen turn into a monster… on the other hand, they had also seen Keith protect Tarf even when transformed, the last of his sanity enabling him to recognise a fragile human child. This memory made him feel slightly better. Even when he had been a monster, he hadn’t exactly been the most monstrous monster ever. Right now he only had an urge to kill a typewriter, not a person.

“I told my dad he should come with me but he says he has to guard the gate. … From what? We don’t get any monsters and we don’t have any other trouble. The Roos sometimes steal the food but I think we should let them...”

Keith let Tarf prattle on as he scanned the place for any threats. While it was true that a gate guard didn’t really help against them, Burnblessed still had a lot of environmental hazards – lava flows, vents of hot steam, the poison gas returning every now and then. The insistence of the locals and trying to mine the caverns did not make matters any better. Still, he managed to stop Tarf falling to his death in Burnblessed, Noltia and the ruins, leading him to Rance Village, where they were greeted with more waving villagers who wanted news from Ramia and the Colony. While Tarf blabbed everyone’s secrets, Keith found his eyes being drawn to the harbor and…

 

… And to an ancient shrine, sealed from the others in the basement of a house accidentally built on top of it…

… Where a voice was distinctly calling him.

A voice that knew his true surname.

"Go on ahead," Keith motioned to the boy, "I'll catch up."

Tarf frowned, "But they won't let me on the boat without an adult!"

I've never noticed anything that mundane stop you before when you seriously want to sneak off somewhere, he thought to himself, sighing. After a few moment's thought, he forced a smile onto his face and said, "We can't greet our old friend who's been gone for such a long time and not take them a present, can we?"

"You're right!" Tarf's face brightened, "Should I go to the shop? Should I get apples? Or should I pick flowers? Do you think there's anything that could still impress Adol after all that adventuring?"

"Probably not," admitted Keith, "But he'll be missing familiar places, so he might want something of sentimental value, a gift from the old home from home, so to speak. I like the idea of a posy of Marle Flowers. They don't grow outside this area, you know."

"I'll get on it right away!" Tarf jumped up and ran towards the gate.

"If you see anything dangerous-looking, you run straight back!" yelled Keith but the boy had already cleared the gate, to the frustrated yells of a surprised Larsen, who had been guarding said gate. Keith shrugged, realising the futility of trying to catch up with an exciting small boy, then walked through the door of the house with the famous Cursed Basement. It wasn't occupied at the moment and, despite the many dangers they had faced, the people of Rance Village had never quite understood the concept of locking their doors, even when they were out. There was apparently still some concern around the basement as it had been covered in protective wards dedicated to Feena and Reah, including a string of silver bells hung on a cord of thick red thread woven into ceremonial braids. As if silver bells hadn't caused them all enough problems. He supposed you had to lure the demons out with something to make certain whether they were still there or not. At least they presented some difficulty for an intruder who wanted to enter the basement unheard - unluckily for Keith. He went silent easily enough as he crept carefully past them, taking care not to disrupt them. He had been required to hunt for the village more than once when times were rough and the usual hunting party needed assistance. Then there were the other times when he had been in an even more dangerously predatorial form and hunted much more cunning prey than boars...

The voice became clearer, louder, more insistent inside his mind as he descended the narrow, precarious, badly maintained steps into the pitch darkness. The torches hadn't been lit in a long time. The owners still didn't trust this place enough to store anything in here. If there was still something present that would attract the attention of the sort of entity that would whisper into Keith's mind like this, maybe that was for the best.

What was it exactly that Adol had found down here? He had been told this before - the young man kept extensive records of his adventures - but it hadn't been the part that Keith remembered, what with almost certainly having nothing to do with removing his curse. (But if it really had nothing to do with his curse, why was it coming up in his life now, of all times?). Maybe he should have genuinely gone to see Adol first, asked him for information and advice, maybe an extra sword hand. But the thing in his head was frantically warning against this, as if with some animal instinct - it was bad to get others involved, especially people like Adol who knew what was down here. They would only try and stop him.

Why, he mentally demanded of his disembodied companion, who may or may not actually exist outside his own twisted conscience: what is it that you want me to do, that would be such a bad idea that a good man such as Adol would never agree to it? 

Not a bad idea, just a difficult one to justify, came the answer, difficult if you don't fully understand it, anyway. Adol Kristin is... well, he's not unintelligent, not compared to a lot of mercenaries, he wouldn't survive some of the things he's encountered if he didn't have something special about him. But he's very linear when it comes to good and evil. Again, not as bad as most - he trusted you despite your appearance, after all - but when it comes to things that must happen for destiny, to keep certain balances and cycles going, to maintain the purity of this world's fate...

"Just tell me what you want!" he snapped, accidentally talking out loud. The silence was shattered like a pane of thin glass, revealing something with glowing red eyes that scuttled away into the deeper shadows. Keith hoped it was just a rat. He called out again, "Look, I'm not a scholar either, and I'm only here because this damn curse will never really be gone if I just hide away. If all you're going to do is make everything worse..."

Your legacy, said the voice, the lone shrine, for the one who rules above and beyond the others. The one who grew too isolated and fell, but still, through another line, through one of Hugo's brothers no doubt... 

"My lineage? You're talking about the Facts? The Shrine of Fact is down there?" he demanded. It had always been missing, worryingly so, considering the reputation of that particular priestly ancestor. 

We live on through several means, although never is it true life. Our books preserve our memories, information about us that is the essential record of the state of our souls. As for our future... we are expected to pass it on to descendants. Not necessary flesh and blood, but we must bring a child into our family and tutor them, and as some innate magic is genetic, a pure bloodline does help, although in truth the bloodlines more often mixed and found existing new mages from outside to produce even stronger alloys of magical powers... 

"I'm neither, though. Certainly no magical training, probably not one ounce of innate talent. Unless you mean..."

Indeed, what you call a 'curse' would be a highly respected, if utterly forbidden, talent in the days of our prime. The culmination of both Gemma innate magic and Fact research into the darker side of magic's effect on the world around us. And you don't even need a staff. 

"Then why didn't you call me beforehand? Why didn't you tell me about any of this when I was in so much danger?" he cried out, "I was turned to stone, for Feena's sake!"

Yes, I saw, and I apologise. I was still resting from my utter defeat. I had only recently been given access to the book I needed - ironically by the person who took it from me, although by this time I was too far gone from the world of the living to be able to use it as I had planned. I had to hide in the spirit world somewhere far away, where I couldn't be found by Dulles or Darm. It would have been... politically delicate. We of the dark are prone to back-stabbing each other whenever we see an ally in a precarious position. And besides, you weren't doing badly without my help, you know? It takes an unbelievable strength of will to use that magic without completely losing yourself to the beast.

"You... I know who you are now..." he growled, "You're the Dark Fact!"

That I am, and I'm not going to pretend to be anything less than completely guilty of everything Adol told you I had done. That said, in my defence, all he had actually seen me do for certain was steal antique books and silverware.

“You won’t lead me down the same path as you! I renounce my Fact name if it means you’re my mentor!”

Oh, you wouldn’t be able to. As I said, you’re a true Fact, no two ways about it with abilities like that. I can’t make you into something the same as myself, though, not without your permission anyway. I can make you into something just as powerful, mind you, and with just as much free will.

“What possible reason do I have to believe you?”

My actions are only a necessary part of fate, you know, but I’m not sure that would be enough to convince one who considers themselves human and somehow above fate. I don’t go around thinking only of how to be evil and give people a hard time, though. The most important thing to me is power, both personal and for the Fact line. Having a competent apprentice would be in my interests as well as that of a young Fact trying to work out what the power they already possess actually means. And no, ignoring it or refusing it won’t make you immune to it going out of control, strong will or no.

“And you’re really going to show me how to control it, not just make the whole thing worse?” he creased his brow, his emotions torn, “What exactly do you want me to do?”

“It’s very easy: just take my book with you to Esteria Proper, go to the ruins of Darm Tower, find where they put my cloak. I left something important in it...”

It was only when he once again had a small, endlessly curious, slightly hyperactive from plant spore inhalation boy in his face that Keith realised he had quite forgotten to get a gift for Adol. Fortunately, he had a bottle of wine on him that he had found in the cellar, which hadn’t been completely devoid of treasure after all. He had been planning to free it from its eternal purgatory of abandonment and grant it the satisfaction of fulfiling its true purpose. However, it would admittedly make a good present as well, especially for someone who he probably needed to get on the good side of. If Adol really was in Minea, Keith would probably not be able to get out of the small town without running into him, probably in the middle of a crowd of female admirers. The swordsman would want to know what he of all people was doing trying to get into Darm Tower. Unlike Tarf, who believed his story about stopping off to collect a library book, Adol would spot the Book of Fact immediately and definitely not let it go unless Keith took special care to hide it. Which he probably should do anyway, he thought: these days the people were not as ignorant of such threats to them as they were. 

Not that I should be doing this, he thought to himself, it’s a horrible idea and an obvious trap. I should just give the book to Adol and tell him what’s been going on so he can warn people. He was wrestling with such thoughts when he realised that the boat that slowly ferried him to Promarock was swarming with Romun soldiers. They didn’t seem to be bothering anyone except for a general air of unease and a lot of suspicious looks among the passengers. Two of the passengers who had boarded the boat along with the soldiers, who seemed to be escorting them as a VIP, made Keith feel more in danger than the entire squadron combined. One of them was huge, in spiky blue plate mail, while the other was a lightly-dressed woman who seemed just as dangerous. 

Keith kept an eye on Tarf during the voyage, making sure that neither of the strangers (or any of the soldiers, for that matter) went anywhere near the boy, as well as the usual task of stopping him falling overboard or being thrown overboard by sailors who were asked one too many question or had one too many vital pieces of the ship's rigging poked - a feat in itself. For most of the journey, Tarf's wariness around armed strangers outweighed his curiosity, at least when there were a million and one slightly safer distractions. For their part, the two strangers gave both Tarf and Keith calculated glances - Keith had the disturbing impression that the woman could see there was something unusual about him and was staring at it right through his soul. Her gaze, through heavily painted eyelashes, made beetles crawl down his spine.

He was glad to be off the boat. The two strangers left Promarock straight away. A stroll into town instantly revealed where Dogi and Goban were - in a very rowdy tavern, in a crowd of sailors and miners, all heavily intoxicated already. Tarf waved cheerfully at them and was informed that Adol had gone off on his own to meet Lilia. Dragging the boy away from the jeering and whistling drunkards, Keith thanked Dogi and suggested they head up to the cottage outside Zepik where Lilia lived before Tarf could learn too many bad habits from his immediate new best friends.

Zepik... a stone's throw away from Darm Tower, up in the foothills... 

They were cheerfully warned away by the gate guards from 'suspicious soldier types' who were 'poking around the mountains again'. Keith facepalmed. He was now certain he could not avoid trouble. Knowing his luck, it was no coincidence either - something was about to awaken.


	4. Chapter 4

'So, he's really going to Darm Tower," Hadal sighed.

"It looks like he's not the first. That place was a bad idea from the start. I had hoped it would finally stay buried forever," Tovah added.

"That place was the only thing tying Ys and it's people to the rest of the world, and there's no way the Goddess' new pet would be able to get up there to save you all from my charming superior - who, by the way, I had never intended to obey through the entire ritual..." he sighed a long, drawn-out sigh, "Look, the important thing right now is that those people are involved in some very bad things and I've probably enabled Keith Fact to be powerful enough to stop them if he gets there first."

"So he can use the same power and get corrupted by it to the exact same end but in your name, you mean?"

"You know, just picking up and using the masks ourselves might be the best way to both stop the Dark Clan getting hold of it and to end this ridiculous policy of hiding magic away and pretending it doesn't exist."

"You really do have a silver tongue, Fact, I can see how the Facts have always been in charge when the Gemmas are the ones who know what they're doing and the Hadals have an ounce of common sense..."

"Because you have zero ambition and no ability to lead, you mean?" 

"No arguing. We're all in exactly the same situation," pointed out Dabbie, "And, worrying as it may be, we have to admit Fact is the only one who can actually do something about the immediate problem. Not to disparage Gemma's long term plan..."

"Oh, stop trying to play both sides," Hadal snapped.

The argument went on for a long time as Keith climbed the mountain paths of Zepik.

* * *

Feena was surprised to see him come back.

He hadn't come back to the sites of any of his previous adventures. He hadn't visited the girls whose hearts he broke along the way, checked up on the communities he had saved from extinction, the entire nations whose development he'd changed the direction of forever. The Goddess didn't blame him. She had foreseen a little of his destiny and knew that he had a long way still to go, that he would probably have to move quite fast if he wanted to be everywhere he was supposed to be in the time he had before he became a little too old for this. Not that she imagined he would stop when his fiery red hair turned white - it might even grow his flame to have some experience behind his belt. It was difficult to tell, too far in the future, as by then he would have clashed with destiny itself so much and begun to divert major cycles of the world in different directions, creating new fates of his own. As the convergence of so many destinies, interfering with even more than he was meant to turn up in, the young man was at the heart of a maelstrom that sent ripples even at the furthest corners of fate. 

In a way, Feena was hoping that he wouldn't come back to visit Lilia again, and not just because she was a tad jealous that he hadn't come to see her first when she was his damn matron deity and had bloody well gotten there first! No, she knew that neither Lilia nor Feena, Elena nor Reah nor Zava nor whoever else might have their eye on the red-haired rake, were destined to actually be with him. Only two individuals were written in the stars for him: one who had been truly there for him, someone he could actually reach out and touch, who had his back in dangerous situations and who he could confide his sorrows to after far too many beers, following him to whichever hell-hole he decided to visit next. 

As for the other one... well, she hoped it wouldn't come to that, even though it was a perfectly valid arc of destiny that would do no harm to the world, quite the opposite, in fact. If he took that path, it would mean that the Goddesses might have a chance to keep him in one place for long enough to get him to contribute to their project, to bridge the gap between the worlds of those known as 'monsters' and those equally varied species who were not - in other words, to bring peace to an ultimately needless conflict that had been raging for thousands of years. 

It wouldn't be that unlikely, too - a difficult fate to manifest when it was opposed by a bond as strong as that between Adol and his blue-haired bear of a soulmate, but Feena was well aware that he also could not forget that last few moments of perfect synchronisation with the dark-cloaked, elegantly handsome gentleman as they whirled like dancers around a crumbling chequer-board that exploded with blossoms of fire. At that one moment, short as it was, the concentrated intensity was such that they reached an event horizon where they were perfectly as one, no other time or space existing outside their attempts to match each other. 

"We will have to wait and see what happens," she muttered, before sweeping across the hallway where her sister played a soulful arpeggio on her silver harmonica. Feena's voice joined Reah's music in an aria like a nightingale. High above them, the black pearl's aura flared up with a strange energy in response, not malicious, not exactly jubilant, but certainly with an ominous potential.


End file.
